8.0

Excellent

Game Description

Name That Tune (Again)!

SongPop 2 is the sequel to the wildly successful SongPop. The original SongPop was award winning, and the sequel builds on the original game’s winning formula to deliver more of what fans have come to love about this game.

Addictive Gameplay

Rounds of SongPop 2 are lightning quick, making it easy to play round after round. During a match, you will be presented with a very short soundbyte of a song along with four potential artists or song titles. Your goal is to match the song with the proper title before the time runs out.

To add to the challenge, the game pits you head to head against another player. If they guess the correct song quicker than you do, they earn more points. If they end up with more points in total, to them goes the victory!

Healthy Competition

SongPop 2 shows you exactly how many seconds it took you to make a correct answer, and it lets you see not only what your opponent guessed but how long it took them as well. Which of course means that they also get to see your choices and the time it took you to answer. This makes the game uniquely competitive. It’s not just about beating your opponent; it’s about guessing faster when it counts. The cycle of playing round after round is truly addicting, giving SongPop 2 nearly limitless replay value.

Broad Range of Genres Included

SongPop 2 covers way more than just Pop music, despite what its title might lead you to believe. Over 100,000 songs are listed in SongPop 2’s catalog, and they include Country, Rap, Rock, Indie, Dance, Hip-Hop and more. Top 40 Hits are represented along with songs from the decades. There is truly something for every musical taste here.

New Mascot and Cuteness Update

The original SongPop was fairly bland style-wise. It looked nice and polished, but nothing about its visuals was remotely memorable. SongPop 2 has a new mascot, Melody, and it has been massively overhauled to include some serious cuteness. Cool sounds, good looks. Great combo!

Discover New Music!

It’s inevitable that an opponent is going to choose a playlist that’s outside of your comfort zone. Incidentally, this is a wonderful way to find new favorite artists and songs! At the end of each round, SongPop 2 shows you the songs and artists in the round along with links to iTunes, Spotify and others, making it easy to round out your mp3 collection.

Unlockable Goodies

What’s more motivating than unlockables? SongPop 2 has tons of content to unlock, giving you the incentive to keep those matches going!

Free to Play

Like the original, SongPop 2 is absolutely free to play, making it a must try for anyone with a compatible device. Take heed though: this game is known to be habit forming!

Go Head to Head With Strangers

Are your friends just not responding to your game requests fast enough? Ask SongPop 2 to hook you up with a random opponent for in the moment music matching action, any time!

SongPop 2 Review

SongPop Returns!

SongPop was a fad that just never went away, often compared to the myriad “With Friends” style games that were flooding the market at the time of the app’s release. Few people realized at the time what a gem SongPop was. The game was actually unlike anything else, so good that it had the potential to become an instant classic. Fast-forward to today, and SongPop is still going strong. SongPop 2 aims to improve on the winning formula of the original. Did they succeed? Read on to find out!

Same Awesome Gameplay

The basics of the game haven’t changed, and that’s a good thing. The game presents players with a small snippet of a song. There are four song titles or artists on the grid, and players have to match the song with the right choice. Matches tend to go by fast, and this keeps the game fresh and fun, even after repeated matches.

This is basically Name That Tune in app form. People have been doing this since the advent of music, but rarely has it been done in such an inherently competitive manner. More on that later!

Music for Everyone

It would make sense to assume that SongPop 2 would be all about Pop. It would also make sense to assume that this game would be mostly dedicated to quizzing players about the music teens are listening to now, given the young and vibrant graphical style of the app. However, that’s not the case. SongPop 2 has everything young people are listening to well represented along with Aerosmith, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Monkees and many, many more. SongPop 2 has over 100,000 songs in genres including Top 40, Classic Rock, Hip-Hop, Country, Dance and others. Music is sorted by genre or decade, making it easy to find your favorite music.

Great for Music Discovery

As you battle it out with opponents, you’re going to hear a lot of new sounds! This is a great way to broaden your musical horizons and discover new faves. If you find a song you like, it’s easy to listen further after the round is through. The game gives you links to iTunes, Spotify, Youtube and Amazon Music, making it simple to expand your music collection. These links are unobtrusive, there if you want them and invisible if you don’t.

New Visual Style and Characters

The original SongPop looked fine. There was nothing wrong with it. There was also nothing at all worth remembering about it visually, but the app was about music, so that’s alright. SongPop 2 has been revamped with a brighter, more colorful style that’s sharp and snappy. More importantly, SongPop 2 has been given a giant dose of cuteness, with adorable characters sprinkled all over the place. The main mascot is Melody, and though she’s human, her cutesy design brings to mind Hello Kitty and other simple yet highly stylized franchises.

The big question is: did an app like SongPop really need a megadose of cuteness? I like cute things, so my vote is that it probably doesn’t hurt. However, if someone is particularly averse to having adorableness foist upon them, SongPop’s makeover is something they’ll have to simply tolerate.

Free to Play

SongPop 2 sticks with the same free to play model as its predecessor. That means you can have a full gameplay experience without paying a dime. The number of rounds you can have going at one time is limited in the free edition, but few people will be bothered by the cap. With that said, buying in-game coins makes unlocking stuff much faster, so it’s a serious temptation. With the game being free to play, there is really no reason not to give it a shot (and become terribly, undeniably addicted in the process).

No Friending Randoms

I expected SongPop 2 to include an option to friend random opponents. We see their pictures, we see their responses, and it only seems fair to have a way to favorite them, if not friend them, in the game. An in-game chat would be pretty nice, too. However, SongPop 2 is just like the original, with no ability to keep track of the random players you cross paths with. Bummer.

Party Mode Isn’t Worth Celebrating

Being a longtime SongPop fan, this new Party Mode included in SongPop 2 was something I got very excited about. Had no idea what it was, but it had to be good, right? Wrong. I ended up disliking Party Mode very much.

Party Mode takes all the best attributes of SongPop (flexibility, one-on-one challenge, variety) and throws them out the window. There are only ever a couple of “parties” going on at a time, and they’re themed so you can’t play what you want to. You can only play what’s there. In order to go into the “party room” and play, you have to pay golden tickets. If you run out of gold tickets, you can always buy more as an in-app purchase, but still. Having to pay to play this mode is pretty annoying.

In the party, other players have paid to get in there, and you all are playing against each other in real time. One of the nice things about SongPop is not having to play at the same time, but party mode is in realtime. Other than that, party mode is exactly the same as normal mode, only less fun because of the sheer number of people in the room. Even if you are extremely quick, with several other people, someone is bound to hit their button first, making it difficult to rank well.

In my experience, the same people seemed to be in the room no matter when I went to play. It made me question if the same group of people are the few who actually like party mode, or if perhaps the game populates the party room with a few bots to ensure that it always feels full.

Sadly, the best thing about party mode is the fact that you can ignore it.

In Summary

SongPop 2 is everything that’s wonderful about the original game and more. It’s a must download and play for anyone who remotely likes music. This is a game that can be played with anybody, and the competitive aspects will keep players coming back long after the initial novelty wears off.

- Review by Alice Flynn

Alice Flynn is a gaming enthusiast and journalist from Los Angeles, CA. She is currently obsessed with obscure foreign dramas, making tofu taste edible and the latest, greatest computer games.

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